


(Every Heart is a Package) Tangled Up in Knots Someone Else Tied

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia Aftermath, F/F, Heaven, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 17:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11166261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: Heaven, it turns out, is nothing but an eternity of waiting. But at least the company is good.





	(Every Heart is a Package) Tangled Up in Knots Someone Else Tied

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of 2011 fic originally posted [here](http://infatuated-ink.livejournal.com/60906.html). Happy pride!

The woman is sitting on a large rock off the side of the road the first time Jess sees her. She can hear the crying before she gets close enough to see that her face is buried in her hands, and it makes Jess very sad, but it makes her very happy, too.

This is the first person she's seen in decades, since the memories stopped and Heaven began to form around her, static and dull and devastatingly eternal. Jess sits on the rock next to the stranger and places a hand on her shoulder. "Hello," she says. 

The woman freezes and tries to wipe at her eyes as she turns to look at Jess. She's gorgeous, Jess thinks, a little worn, but it suits her. She looks kind, responsible, like someone's mom, maybe, and Jess likes her immediately. Not that she can really be picky about her company these days.

"Hi," the woman says. She smiles weakly, bright white teeth showing through. Dazzling smile. Jess wants to see it again, but the woman is back to somber in an instant. "Sorry I, uh…"

She gestures that she doesn't really know what she's doing, and Jess laughs gently. "It's okay," she assures. "I'm Jessica, but my friends, when I had them, called me Jess."

"Lisa," the woman says. "I'm Lisa."

Jess nods. "Nice to meet you."

"Oh, I bet," Lisa replies, making a skeptical face. "Look, I don't know what this is or why I'm interrupting you, but please just ignore me and go back to…whatever you were doing."

"I wasn't doing much," Jess admits, not moving from the woman's side. "Just waiting."

"For what?"

Jess smiles out of the side of her mouth. "I have no idea anymore."

Lisa laughs. "Why were you waiting for it, then?"

Jess shrugs. "Nothing else to do up here."

"That's great news," Lisa mutters under her breath.

Jess hesitates, then leans closer letting her knees bump Lisa's. "Why were you crying?" she asks. "If you want to talk about it, that is."

Lisa bites her bottom lip, then gives Jess a weak smile. "The memories," she says simply.

Jess thinks back on hers. They'd all been happy: family nights on the couch, opening her Stanford acceptance letter, every "first" she and Sam had shared. Jess thought happy was the point.

"They were bad?"

Lisa shakes her head. "No, they were lovely."

"Oh." Jess stares at the ground and tries to keep quiet, even begins to fidget before she breaks. "So it was happy crying?"

"No, it was…pretty awful," Lisa answers after awhile, but she seems to be over it enough that the conversation isn't bothering her. "Half of them were with a man I'd never seen before in my life."

"How is that possi—?"

Lisa laughs. "Right?"

"You really didn't know him at all?"

"I must have. I seemed to." She stares down at her hands and looks like she's going to cry again. "I think he loved me. I think I loved him. And he…he took care of my kid. I never got that, you know?" Lisa shrugs. "It's just a little pathetic, having to invent memories of something like that."

Jess pats her thigh awkwardly. "I know the feeling."

Lisa looks over, intrigued.

"I've spent the last fifty or something years waiting for someone. For my soul mate, I guess." Jess laughs shakily. "I don't think he's coming."

"Why not?"

Jess shrugs. "I watched him down there sometimes. I think, maybe, he just had too much time to move on. Found a better offer."

"I'm sorry," Lisa says.

"No, I'm sorry for you."

"Well, I guess that makes us both pretty sorry."

Jess laughs, and they sit quietly on that rock together for hours before Jess feels it's about time she should exit.

_______________________________________________________________

She's back the next day. Same white dress, same long blonde hair, lighting that makes it look like a halo as Jess sits down. Again, Lisa thinks she must be an angel, but then she remembers what the memories told her about angels and is thankful this woman is very obviously not one.

"What was his name?" Jess asks as she sits. She hands something to Lisa, and Lisa looks down at a box of chocolate—the good stuff, the kind generally reserved only for binging after hard break ups. Next to her, Jess begins to wrestle the top off a container of Chunky Monkey. "Do you remember?"

Lisa stares. "Where did you get—?"

"It's Heaven, bitch, and I've been stuck up here forever and a day. I think I can manage a good slumber party by now."

Lisa laughs and tears open the package of chocolates, picking up a piece and popping it in her mouth. "Dean, I think. That's what Ben always called him in the memories." She hesitates. "How about you?"

Jess licks at her spoon in a way that Lisa finds very difficult not to stare at. "Sam." She turns and gives Lisa a sardonic smile. "Sam Winchester."

"Winchester," Lisa replies, jumping just a little. Something sparks in her. Sam Winchester. The name sounds familiar. Why does that name sound familiar? "Sam Winchester."

Jess arches an eyebrow, but the effect of the look is lost when she apparently swallows too much ice cream and has to shake away a brain freeze.

"Winchester," Lisa says again, trying it out.

Jess's eyes go wide, and they turn to each other at exactly the same moment.

"Dean Winchester?" they say in unison. Then they trade snacks and keep eating.

_______________________________________________________________

Jess leaves the house earlier than usual the next day and finds Lisa already waiting up. She's turned in the direction Jess comes from now, though, Jess knows she's not waiting for Dean. Which is kind of nice. Jess wishes she'd figured things out that fast.

"Can't believe we got dumped in Heaven," says Lisa as Jess settles onto the ground beside her.

Jess snorts, blinking up at the sky. She likes this better than sitting on Lisa's preferred rock all day, but she kind of wishes they were farther down the road, in the house Jess lives in when she isn't waiting. The ground is softer there, and the clouds could be whatever they wanted instead of the standard shapes they've been staring at for hours.

"Can't believe you got memorexed _and then_ dumped in Heaven."

"At least I didn't die in a fire," Lisa replies, hitting Jess's arm lazily.

Jess smirks. "At least I didn't get old."

Lisa sits up very suddenly and begins to feel at her face. Her mouth drops open. "I'm not old, am I?"

"Well, you're old _er_ ," Jess answers. "But that's okay. I can go for that."

Lisa shakes her head, brown locks curling around it, and smiles her perfect smile for one of the rare times in the last three days. "I was ancient down there. When I died, I mean. God, I must look amazing."

Jess laughs. "Modesty not one of your virtues, huh?"

Lisa smirks and lies back down. "Turn 80 and then come back and tell me you don't look pretty good in comparison."

Lisa looks better than almost anyone Jess can think of in comparison, but instead of saying so, she just hums quietly and closes her eyes and waits for Sam Winchester to not show up.

_______________________________________________________________

Lisa holds her hand out and wiggles her fingers in lieu of asking for the bottle. Jess looks at her for a few long seconds, pretending to think it over, and finally passes the whiskey.

"How about this one?" Jess lets her head fall back, and Lisa makes a feeble attempt at not staring at the line of her throat. "Every time I had a birthday, Sam would spend half of it sneaking off to try calling Dean. Like Dean was going to care it was his girlfriend's birthday or something?"

"Weird," Lisa agrees. "Definitely weird." She takes one burning sip and turns over on her side. "You should have seen him on Sam's birthday. He wouldn't get out of bed."

"And then Sam left after nothing for years just because Dean showed up and asked," Jess continues.

Lisa nods. She remembers by now, pretty much everything. Or at least she thinks she does, and the stories she and Jess have been swapping all day don't contradict her memories one bit. "Yeah, Dean, too."

"They were weird about each other," Jess says with a sloppy laugh. "There, I said it."

"They were just weird in general." Lisa bites her bottom lip, thinks of all the things Dean had told her he'd been through. The things Jess swears she watched from Heaven, really saw with her own eyes. "They were impossible pains in the ass, but they were good guys."

"Yeah," Jess agrees softly. "Yeah, they were."

Lisa frowns. "I'm sorry Sam's not coming."

Jess shrugs. "He was the love of my life," she says. "The only one I got, really. But it makes sense that it wasn't like that for him. He went through a whole lot more than I ever got a chance to." She shakes her head as if centering herself, and then side-glances at Lisa. "Now all I've got is your sorry ass."

Lisa laughs unexpectedly. "You know, you're a lot like Dean sometimes."

Jess grins, snatching the bottle and bringing it to smiling lips. "Don't even want to think about what that means," she says.

Lisa watches her drink and thinks, _it means I could fall in love with you_. The thought strikes her as an important one, and she files it away. She's not really equipped for it right now.

"More whiskey," Lisa demands.

Jess laughs. "Slow down, girl," she says, even as she's obeying. "We can't all be Dean Winchester."

Lisa ignores her and takes a long drink. It's almost definitely not possible to get a hangover in Heaven, she figures.

_______________________________________________________________

"You _can_ get a hangover in Heaven," Lisa informs Jess miserably, her head cradled in her hand. She's not looking her usual charming self, and Jess winces in sympathy.

"Tell me about your son," Jess says as she sits, hoping it'll be enough of a distraction from the headache.

Lisa looks up from her palm with a smirk. "You just opened Pandora's Box."

And Jess really did. Lisa spends the rest of the day doing the proud parent routine, starts with Ben as a kid, tells Jess about his wife, her grandkids. They lose the whole day like that, but Jess doesn't ever actually get around to regretting it.

_______________________________________________________________

Lisa wants to ask where she goes when she's not here. There's something to it, though, something Lisa hasn't been dead long enough to understand. Only Sam can know where she goes, and Lisa doesn't take that personally. She sees Jess hesitate, watches her fingers twitch a little before she says 'goodbye,' like she wants to invite Lisa just as much as Lisa wants that.

Jess likes to lie on the ground next to Lisa's rock, even if Lisa stubbornly insists on not joining her. She says it's because she can see the clouds that way— _they're the only things that change up here_ —but she spends just as much time with her eyes closed, smiling into the sunlight, as she spends actually watching them. Which leaves Lisa free to stare, memorize the way Jess's lips curve up when she's listening to Lisa talk.

"You're doing the creepy watching-me-while-my-eyes-are-closed thing again," Jess says, opening one and squinting up at Lisa, "aren't you?"

Lisa smiles and moves to sit next to Jess on the floor but doesn't lie down just yet. "How can you be so sure I do that if your eyes are closed?"

Jess blinks both of her eyes open then and fixes them on Lisa with a knowing smirk. "But I'm not wrong, am I?"

Lisa doesn't know why, but she reaches out and slides her hand over Jess's stomach. Jess hardly reacts at all except to place her own hand over Lisa's when it stops on her hip. Lisa half-expects to get pushed away, but the other half of her isn't surprised when Jess laces their fingers instead.

Lisa straddles Jess and leans down, pressing her lips against Jess's, just to see if she can get away with it. Jess pulls her closer, kisses back until she digs her fingers into Lisa's side, and Lisa falls off in a fit of giggles that only stops when Jess reverses their positions, climbs on top of Lisa and kisses her again.

At the end of the day, when Jess is leaving, her cheeks pink with exertion, her white dress covered in grass stains, and her hair an unruly mess, she makes it halfway to the road she usually leaves on and turns back.

She bites her plump bottom lip, and Lisa licks hers on reflex. Jess stands there, hesitant, her hand doing the twitchy thing again, and then reaches out. "Wanna come with?" she asks.

Lisa looks up at her, feeling like a puppy trying to get adopted. She does want, she wants very much. But it's not for her. She shakes her head slightly and smiles. "You go ahead. I'm gonna wait a little longer."

Jess nods slowly. "Yeah, okay," she says, sounding a little put out. "Let me know if you see Sam."

_______________________________________________________________

There's a river between Jess's house and the entrance to their Heaven. Jess rides a small boat across it every day. It's hardly big enough for two, and Jess used to wonder how it was going to hold Sam's weight and her own once he finally showed up. She gets it now. It took a week, which is pretty pathetic, really, but she gets it. 

She resisted the obvious at first, because this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She hadn't even known Lisa when she was alive, how could they be soul mates? But the waiting—it's wrong, it's felt wrong since it started. Jess gave up on Sam decades ago. That broke her heart at the time, but she thinks about it now, about getting Lisa instead, and she can't summon all that disappointment she's been living off.

She wonders, idly, if this is a sign. If she'd lived a full life instead of burning up so young would she have met Lisa? Was it supposed to be like this: bonding over the men they loved and then moving past that? Jess thinks maybe it was. 

And it's not that she's over Sam. Jess misses Sam—to a completely reasonable degree. She loves the memory of him, but now that she stops to inspect it, it's faded. There's no urgency and there hasn't been for decades. Then she thinks of the bright purple of Lisa's shirt and the way she melted under Jess and it's so fucking obvious, Jess can't believe she didn't get it yesterday, didn't throw Lisa over her shoulder caveman-style whether she wanted to follow or not. They should have recognized it immediately instead of spending six days waiting for Sam and Dean. Forget all the Winchester drama, they did their time. Things can be easy now.

Lisa is pacing when Jess arrives that day, and Jess doesn't waste any time sitting. Lisa tries to, but Jess holds her up.

"You're late," Lisa says. "I thought you weren't coming today."

Jess is a little too in love with the knowledge that someone is finally stressing out over whether _she's_ going to show or not. "I'm here today. I'm not coming tomorrow," Jess explains.

"Oh," Lisa says, pouting slightly. "Why not?"

"Because my soul mate showed up."

"Sam…that's. Great. I'm happy for you." Lisa frowns and stares at the ground, then looks up stunned when Jess laughs at her and throws an arm around her middle. "What are—?"

"I've been waiting for you a really long time," Jess says. "So can we just go home now?"


End file.
